Stand still on a fort long enough, and something begins to happen. The wind softens around your ears. The stones beneath your feet feel warmer. The sky stretches wider, as if ready to share a memory. And in that moment, when there’s no noise except your breath, you begin to wonder : if this fort could speak, what would it tell us?
Perhaps it would begin with pride. It would remind us that long before we arrived here with backpacks and camera phones, others climbed the same slopes with armour clinking against their ribs and fear sitting heavy on their lungs. The fort would remember days when horses paced the courtyard, when the night sky flickered with torches instead of city lights, and when every stone was laid with intent not for beauty, but for protection.
“I remember who you were,” the fort might say. It would not mean royalty or kings, but the ordinary men and women who built, defended, and believed. A fort has held the footsteps of messengers who ran barefoot, mothers who hid tears behind pride, and young soldiers who whispered promises into the night sky. It carries their stories in silence. History books cannot capture what stone can.
And then, perhaps, its voice would change. Not angry only weary. A quiet disappointment that is easier to feel than to hear. “I did not survive storms, sieges, fires, and centuries only to be buried under plastic,” it might say. Once, people came here to protect something bigger than themselves. Today, many come to prove they were here a photo at the top, a wrapper left behind. The fort has always faced invaders, but this new invasion is made of apathy and packaged in single-use plastic.
Yet, even through that sadness, a fort would find hope. It sees volunteers climb its steps with garbage bags instead of picnic baskets. It watches teenagers sweat under the sun, collecting trash they did not create, turning shame into responsibility. It sees the work of people like Kedar Patankar and The Trash Talk, who return month after month with new hands, new hearts, and the same belief that heritage deserves more than admiration; it deserves effort.
For the fort, every bottle lifted is a victory. Every piece of trash carried down is a memory restored. When someone bends down to clean what others ignored, the fort remembers the courage it once witnessed. Cleaning a fort doesn’t just change the fort it changes the person. It is impossible to walk away from a cleanup and see history the same way again. Something settles into you: a pride that is quieter than applause, but deeper than any slogan.
If a fort could speak, it might offer one final reminder before you walk down. It would say that heritage is not an object; it is an inheritance. You don’t visit a fort you inherit it. You don’t look at it you learn from it. And when you leave, you carry a small part of that story forward, whether you realize it or not.
On the descent, when the world returns to noise and notifications, the memory of the fort’s silence stays with you. You understand that history is not a chapter to be memorized it is a conversation between who we were and who we are becoming. And somewhere in that dialogue lies a simple truth:
If a fort could speak, it wouldn’t ask to be admired. It would ask to be protected.